Sellers Guide

Even if your home is in excellent condition, most sellers decide to make a few quick improvements before listing their home. The goal is to make your house neutral enough to appeal to a wide range of buyers while simultaneously remaining memorable. Some of the most common ways to prepare your home for the market include:

• Removing family pictures and personal memorabilia. Buyers will be able to picture themselves living in the home more easily if they’re not reminded at every turn that the home currently belongs to someone else.
• Removing all the clutter. Having too many items in a house can make the house feel smaller. By getting rid of the clutter, the house feels larger and more open.

Once your house is ready to present to buyers, we can take the listing photos, set an asking price, and officially list your house for sale.

Setting the Asking Price

Setting an appropriate asking price is critical. If your price is too low, you risk leaving money on the table. If your price is too high, buyers won’t take your listing seriously.

Many sellers believe that should list at an above-average price to leave room for negotiations. But this strategy almost always backfires. First, pricing too high could mean your listing gets filtered out of online searches for buyers looking in a certain price range. And when buyers’ agents see an overpriced listing, they often dismiss the listing, thinking the sellers aren’t really motivated to sell. You might think you can just lower the price after a few weeks, but by then, the novelty of your new listing will have worn off, and (even worse), buyers and their agents may think there is something wrong with the house. 

Finding a qualified buyer typically requires a lot more than simply listing your home on the MLS. Good listing agents actively market your listing to their own network of buyers, as well as to their colleagues, who can notify their buyers of your listing.

Agents also promote your listing through marketing channels like social media, house hunting websites, mailers, brochures, flyers, email blasts, and local publications.

Once you have an accepted offer, your house is officially under contract! The contract period typically lasts between 30 and 60 days, which is long enough for the buyers to complete their due diligence, which includes: 

• Having the property inspected and appraised
• Confirming that the property title is clear (meaning that you are legally allowed to sell the property and no one else has any claim to it), and
• Securing mortgage financing. In most cases, sellers don’t need to do much during this time. We’ll just need to make the property available to the buyers and their representatives as needed. And you may need to make repairs if any issues are uncovered by the home inspection. Repairs can typically be negotiated, but some home loans (particularly government-backed loans like VA, FHA, and USDA) require that certain important repairs are completed before closing.